…sixteen--year--old girl named Yehonala entered the Imperial Palace of China as a concubine third grade, leaving behind her family, the love of her life, and nearly all contact with the outside world. She emerged as Tsu Hsi, Dowager Empress of China and one of the most powerful autocrats in history.
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Over the past 250 years of momentous change and dramatic upheaval, China has proved itself to be a Restless Empire. It explains how Chinese attitudes have been determined by both receptiveness and resistance to outside influence and presents the preoccupations that have set its foreign-relations…
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Features the story of the 90-year presence of American forces in China until the fall of Peking in 1941. This work includes coverage of the first operations on the Pearl River in 1856 as well as US involvement in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900.
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From the bestselling author of Wild Swans and Mao: The Unknown StoryIn this groundbreaking biography, Jung Chang vividly describes how Empress Dowager Cixi - the most important woman in Chinese history - brought a medieval empire into the modern age.
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In 1774, British traders longed to open relations with China so they sent a young Scotsman, George Bogle, as an envoy to Tibet. Bogle became smitten by what he saw there, and struck up a remarkable friendship with the Panchen Lama. This book tells the story of their two extraordinary journeys across…
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Robert Fortune was a Scottish gardener, botanist, plant hunter - and industrial spy. In 1848, the East India Company engaged him to make a clandestine trip into the interior of China - territory forbidden to foreigners - to steal the closely guarded secrets of tea.
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Covers the history of the Chinese army from the accession of the great Mongol Khan, Kublai, to the time when European weaponry was introduced. This volume details the equipment and uniforms during the Yuan dynasty, the civil wars of the 14th century, and the campaigns to expel the Mongols.
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This survey offers insights into the history and structure of the Tibetan scholastic tradition, and the changes that it has undergone over the last 800 years. Drawing on numerous original Tibetan sources, the academic degrees are described along with the etymology of the various titles.
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This volume covers Chinese military history, from the height of the Chinese Empire to the disastrous Opium wars, and covers the latter part of the Ming Empire, the rise of the Ming dynasty and the Ching dynasty. The effect on China of Western influences fronm 1840 onwards is also examined.
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Offers an analysis of the Chinese Armies that fought a series of increasingly fractious wars over nearly a century. Beginning with a run through of the Chinese forces that fought the British and French during the two Opium Wars, this history goes on to trace the forces who were drawn into internal…
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